No party or class has the monopoly on lechery

BY TRACEY O'SHAUGNESSY | REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

My, my, what a cornucopia of creeps our benighted country has dished up for us this holiday season.

And so refreshingly bipartisan!

Who says we are a polarized country when our pantheon of perverts comprises so many politicians, publishers and pundits from such a wide array of society? The political autocracy, media plutocrats, technology titans and Hollywood’s reliable randy libertines have all contributed so handsomely to the national level of disgust that it’s hard to single out any particular class, party, industry or partisan for having a monopoly on lechery.

Oh yes, they are all men.

Even the “progressive” men, like the formerly debonair broadcaster Charlie Rose, now accused by more than eight women of groping, exposure and lewd behavior. So much for champions of feminism. Their hypocrisy reeks of a particularly noxious smugness.

The biggest story this fall has become the swelling parade of satyrs outed for raping, abusing, exposing or forcing themselves on so many women. Not tax reform. Not health care. Not the boarder wall. But the relationships between men and women in the workplace. We have not come a long way “baby.”

Firstly, it cannot be declared loudly enough that most men do not grab, grunt, gyrate or grope women without the slightest provocation.

We just need more of them.

And they need to speak up a little louder. As New York Times columnist Charles Blow writes, “We have to re-examine our toxic, privileged, encroaching masculinity itself,” he writes. “And we have to focus on the fact that society itself has incubated and nourished a dangerous idea that almost unbridled male aggression is not only a component of male sexuality, it is the most prized part of it.”

Indeed, it is one thing to learn that one smarmy Hollywood producer was a boor, ordering up women to his hotel room as though they were egg-white omelets, but the procession of men accused of sexual harassment or rape has seemed to scoop up moral detritus like a hurricane-swollen river.

An entire herd of them – on the left and the right – has now been branded as predacious pigs. Politically, they are as disparate as Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly and NPR’s Michael Oreskes; as Charlie Ross and Mark Halperin; and as Donald Trump and Bill Clinton. Occupationally, they run the gamut from actors to comedians, media titans, producers and publishers.

Some, like Louis C.K. or Al Franken, offer tardy acts of contrition so fulsome as to prompt biliousness. Others, like Kevin Spacey, bumbled his apology to then-14-year-old Anthony Rapp by using it to announce his coming-out party. The conflation of homosexuality with pedophilia is a canard the gay community has long fought. Thus, Spacey’s bungling announcement managed to draw the ire of the gay and straight community, even as it deflected from the real damage his alleged actions did to his accusers. Their numbers have now grown to 20.

So, call it plainly. These men were piggish predators who, as Times columnist David Brooks writes, have “morally obliterated” their victims. Moreover, he writes, “By treating such behavior as ‘locker-room talk’ or laddish behavior, they helped smooth the ground for all the predators to come.”

All of that brings me to that rip-roarin’, straight-shootin’ cowboy of Christian virtue, Roy Moore.

The Alabama candidate for Senate has been pointedly accused of preying on many young women, including a 14-year-old, when he was in his 30s and serving as a district attorney.

The allegations, reported by The Washington Post, are detailed and deplorable. Moore, an evangelical Christian, has denied them all and Alabama’s state auditor compared Moore with Joseph and Mary. “There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here,” he said. “Maybe just a little bit unusual.”

This is biblical malpractice of the most iniquitous sort. Leaving aside Big Christian Tenets like the virgin birth, the baseness of this analogy falls somewhere between ignorance and blasphemy.

A Christian should know better. And when Christians do not know better and prattle about with excuses like “It’s between him and God,” they damage the brand.

Not long after Moore’s vigorous denials, an Ohio state lawmaker known for his stalwart support of “family values” and opposition to gay marriage resigned after officials acknowledged he had sought or engaged in relationships with gay men. All of that might have been just fine – though it might have proved disturbing to his wife – had he not preened about as a defender of “a committed natural marriage.” Whatever that is these days.

Sadly, these kinds of sanctimonious blowhards cause secular observers to look at Christians as holier-than-thou hypocrites.

The duplicity in the left-leaning media follows a discouraging parallel. We can’t possibly put credence into reporters whose behavior subverts their credibility.

Is it really so hard to keep your hands to yourself and just do your job?

So, this holiday season, as we digest this repast of debauchery, we might want to ask ourselves what it takes to change our mind. Because if we cannot change our mind, in the light of new revelations or evidence, we cannot grow as human beings or as a society.

I wish I could say that I did not like and admire many of those who have lately been exposed as serial harassers. Many fought for causes in which I believe, produced glittering prose, pointed punditry and thoughtful, expressive work.